Lecture Date: February 14, 2023
The Yuh Prosthodontics Lecture
As the fourth son of his famous clan, Ted Kennedy was the runt of the litter. Expelled from Harvard for cheating, he was a fun-loving playboy who nevertheless found a role, serving his brothers John and Robert loyally. It was easy to take him lightly. No one expected he would ever lead his family or his party. But when he was elected to the U.S. Senate at the age of 30 to fill his brother John's seat, something unexpected happened: he found his home and his calling. Over time, he would build what was arguably the most significant senatorial career in American history. He did so in a life buffeted by heartbreak: the violent death of his three older brothers, his own near-fatal plane crash, his children's bouts with cancer, the hideous self-inflicted wounds of Chappaquiddick and the stretches of drinking and womanizing that caused irreparable damage to his marriage. These wounds scarred him deeply, tested his resilience and tempered his character. Over time, reaching across the aisle in a partisan era to forge compromises with even the most conservative Republicans, he changed America for the better.
Further Reading Resource List provided by CRRL
Speaker: John A. Farrell
John Aloysius Farrell (www.jafarrell.com) is the best-selling author of Richard Nixon: The Life, which won the PEN America award for the best biography, and the New-York Historical Society book prize for the best volume of American history, of 2017. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography. His new book: Ted Kennedy: A Life, made the list of finalists for the National Book Award. Farrell has a PhD in history from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia and started his literary career as a prize-winning newspaperman, most notably for The Boston Globe, where he served as White House correspondent and on the vaunted Spotlight team. In 2001 he published Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century, a biography of the late Speaker of the House which won the D. B. Hardeman prize for the best book on Congress. Farrell's biography of the great American defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned, won the 2012 Los Angeles Times book award for the best biography of the year. He has also earned a George Polk award for investigative reporting, and the Gerald Ford prize and White House Correspondents’ Association honors for coverage of the presidency.